Replacement Therapy

I have a beautiful garden. I mean, it's a really nice garden. It is chock full of seedlings that are now huge after I bought and put them in the ground. It has seedlings that sprouted from seeds I put in the soil and grew myself. There are even seedlings from seeds I planted in starter pots and then transplanted to the garden soil--again, all by myself.

This garden is going to feed our family and friends this year. It will provide sustenance and nutrition. It will reduce my carbon footprint by a ridiculously small amount (had to drive to get the dirt, etc.). It produces tasty additions to foods I prepare, and even makes for cat happiness.

I also have a lovely new kitten. She came to us at 11 weeks old, and so tiny she fit onto our shoulders. She's growing. She's tenacious, and bold, and curious, and adorable. She grooms my face (the raspy tongue hurts so good!), and winds around my feet, and looks for me if she thinks I'm gone. She makes messes and drives the other cats nuts and terrifies the dogs. She provides hours of entertainment and worry equally, and takes up tons of time through vet visits and training and cuddling and feeding and rescuing from the other cats. She is a beautiful addition to our family, and I love her.

As odd as it seems, these two things are providing me with a deeper sense of both being able to produce and to nurture. Those things I miss so dreadfully every day. As I put the seeds into the ground, I found myself thinking of them as embryos (I put in several for each hole, just in case!) and would lovingly cover them with the soil of earth's womb as I wished for them to grow. As I hold Fizgig in my arms while she sleeps I can feel how much she trusts me, and how attached she is to me. It's almost like I have found a way (at least temporarily) to fill a hole in my heart and soul.

And even more oddly, now that I'm going to try to do another cycle (after having the last 2 canceled) I find that suddenly I'm able to hold hope once more. I'm not so focused on how horribly empty and meaningless life is as I contemplate the emptiness of my womb. I don't look on in envy so painful it causes me to constrict around myself in an effort to protect, all because I see someone else holding what I have repeatedly been denied or had stripped from me. Instead, I find I can go and look at my garden, or hold my kitten, and know I'm both needed and connected to the earth and my family.

It's an odd sort of haven, but it works for me in the here and now. And for the first time in a long while, I feel like I can look ahead with something other than an empty heart. It's a strange sort of comfort, but the garden green and kitten soft are a balm to my soul.

My Thoughts on God (and evalangelical baloney)

So, I'm at this party when a woman I have never met makes the following statement: "If you just ask the universe for what you need, you'll get it. It's amazing."

To which I responded (without really thinking about how I was about to offend a guest of a good friend of mine): "That is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard."

Hilarity ensued. She then listed several examples in her life of how this had happened (I was just telling the universe that I wanted to be a sports reporter, and the very next night who do I run into at a bar but Jerry Rice? etc., ad nauseum).

I tried to be polite--no, wait, that's a lie. I actually did not try to be polite. I told her it was great that what she wanted happened to sync up with what she got. But in the end, it's all a crap shoot and we have very little control over what happens to us much of the time.

Now you would think, or at least I would, that at this point in time she would get the message and think, Oh, that woman must have been through something rather traumatic, perhaps I should leave this alone. But no. Oh, no. She has to go on, to push her point of view onto me. Even when I'm saying things like, "Well, I'm glad that works for you. You have been very lucky. Good for you." She just couldn't let it go. And at the end of the night, she comes to me to say goodbye and hugs me in that half-hug way people do at the end of parties with people they don't know very well but you're in California so we all have to hug. And as she hugs me she says:

"You just have to open your heart."

I said, "No."

"You really need to open your heart."

"No."

"Well, if you keep saying 'no' to the universe of course you aren't going to get what you wanted."

Icy stare. No response.

"You're far to young to be this bitter and negative."

"No," I said out of habit, then realized what she had said. "Yes. You're right. I am far too young for this to have happened. I agree. Have a good night."

I find out that on her way out she has stopped to tell my friend that I am, "Full of negative energy," and that she will ask the universe to open my heart for me.

Okay, here's the thing. Crap like this is akin to telling someone that if s/he prays hard enough for something, it will happen. Newsflash: NO, IT WON'T. It might happen. It could happen. But it also might not. And the annoying thing is, for those people for whom things do align, they think they had some control over it! This is horrifying to me, because the next step in their fatally flawed logic is this: Obviously that person did not pray hard enough/properly/long enough/etc. and that is why she didn't get what she wanted. Or worse, God/The Universe/insert deity here is angry with that person, and is punishing her/him.

Look, people, we don't sacrifice virgins to the great volcano god anymore. Why? Because it didn't work! Sometimes the volcano still blew up. In the end, it had nothing to do with sacrifice or prayer or preparation or hard work. It had to do with geologic forces taking place outside the realm of human intervention, and it had absolutely nothing to do with anything else. There are times in our lives when we want something so desperately that we are willing to do anything to get it. Anything. We beggar ourselves financially, emotionally, physically. We run down any and every lead that has ever existed on ways that have "worked" for others. We research, we focus, we pray. And in the end, we still don't have what we want.

There are some things that are simply out of our control.

I realize this leads people in different directions. For some, it is a way to believe more deeply in their god or connect more deeply with their spirituality. For others, it is a cut off from the divine completely. I'm not sure which way it's going to go for me, but I do know this much--I am no longer of the ilk that asking is getting. And to propose that to someone else is not only ludicrous, it's harmful. Would someone say something like that to a family in a war-torn country? "Just pray to Allah hard enough, and the enemy troops will withdraw and you and your family will have all that you need." No, you wouldn't say that unless you were a complete and total idiot.

I'm not saying that there is no god. I'm also not saying that there is. My feelings on this matter fluctuate daily. I am beginning to wonder if the concept of "god" is a construct that makes us feel better about our lives, and is therefore valid whether it's true or not. Maybe "god" doesn't exist to give me what I want/deserve/need. Maybe "god" is just there to help me cope with the injustices of life. Maybe god herself has been through tragedy and pain, and is more there to hold and comfort and less to influence.

I really hate to think that god is able to influence outcomes, because if that is so then s/he is pretty sadistic and uncaring. I prefer to think there is no god at all than that.

Today I'm sticking with god being a comforting presence, the idea that we are all part of the same humanity and that we have all suffered untold traumas and have experienced inexpressible joys. Today I'll look at the blossoms in the trees and find beauty in them, and remember that beauty does exist in the world. It isn't always visible, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. It's also not permanent. But neither is pain. Flowers follow rain, and rot follows flowers, and so on. Maybe, in the end, it isn't even about me at all. Maybe it's about connecting with others to share the good times and the bad.

I had a thought after my encounter with this woman that has been rattling in my head ever since: Perhaps the secret to happiness is being able to do what you can, be the best you can be, find out what you get in life, and then find a way to be content with it. My analogy was that we study a certain set of rules for a certain game, but in the end we don't know what deck of cards we're going to get. If you studied for backgammon and life gives you Uno, instead of crying about the time lost on preparing for backgammon maybe we can accept that we have Uno, learn the rules, and eventually learn to enjoy playing that game.

I'm nowhere near being able to do this, by the way. It's just my new thought. It's the wisdom I don't yet have the patience to attain.

The death of past and future

Six years ago today, I watched my mother die.

It's funny how there are some dates you remember crystal clear, whereas others you spend hours trying to get your brain to remember. (Think history class.) Then again, I suppose if you had watched the horrific and painful passing of a loved one on Arbor Day it would easy to recall without much effort.

For the last 5 years, I have spent this day trying to avoid those memories. This is like trying not to get wet in a rainstorm, but it doesn't stop me from trying. My mother had cancer, see, and it was a death which robbed her of her dignity, her body, and her spirit. The tumor was in the roof of her mouth, so even after they tried to take it out a few times (leaving her without a roof in her mouth and therefore no barrier into her sinus cavity) when it came back it had maximal impact. Doubling in size every month, it quickly moved on from golf-ball to softball. It was placed in exactly the right spot to rob her of her sight, her sense of smell, and her hearing. And since she had no palette in her mouth, she had already been unable to speak clearly or eat for quite some time.

I watched her melt. My mom was the strongest woman I've ever known. Even at a diminutive 5'2" she was able to arm wrestle any man that challenged her--and often win. She was the first woman in the factory to get a fork lift license. She was the first woman to become a stock chaser, which meant that she had to lift heavy items all day long. I remember how she would sometimes come home covered in cuts and bruises because everything had been built for a man, and a woman her size did not fit their mold. This just made her even more determined to outdo any man who had ever done the job. And she did. She was awesome. She worked hard, she was a single mom, she brought home the bread and bacon, and she never wavered.

Then cancer came. I first got the news via e-mail from her best friend while I was overseas in Japan. I didn't know she'd gone through surgery to get rid of it till she was home from the hospital. This was typical of her--there were very few things in her life she had ever asked for help with. Cancer was no different.

Her last Christmas (unbeknown to us), my live-in partner at the time (now my husband) flew with me to the Midwest to meet her. She and I had always passed for near twins most of my life. When she answered the door I recoiled in a moment of horror. Instead of seeing a near-perfect if slightly older version of my face, I saw a twisted stranger looking back at me. The latest surgery had horribly disfigured her. It didn't stop her from trying her best to make a nice dinner for us, give us gifts she had used precious energy to buy and wrap, and try to welcome my partner into the family.

Less than a month after that, I got the call. It was time to go home. When I arrived, my mother lay on the floor of the living room, wrapped in filthy blankets because she didn't have the strength to get up and wash them or herself. She turned away from me when I walked in, refusing to look at me and thereby admit that she needed help. My teenage brother dithered, utterly helpless. Not a single dish had been washed since Christmas. Holes had been eaten through the bottoms of pans. Animal urine and feces was everywhere from the dog and cats. It was impossible to walk through to my mother's bedroom from the laundry that sat in huge piles on the floor. The stench was palpable. It was truly like descending into hell.

Against my mother's wishes, I stayed. ("If you want me to leave, get up off the floor and kick my ass out!") I set to cleaning the house. I tackled the bathroom first so I could get her clean. The kitchen came next so I could make food for the family. Finally I made her bedroom into a place where she could lie quietly. Looking back, I realize that often she would lie back there, dying and alone, while I sat in a corner in the living room. As often as I tried to be near her, I didn't always have the strength. Every day the cancer would strip the flesh from her bones, and the spirit from her face. Every day there was a new hallucination, a new medication, a new issue to be dealt with.

She refused to see her family, and requested I be the bearer of that news. In spite of my trying daily to convince her to see them (and succeeding near the end--she allowed them to come in once when she was cognizant, and I brought them in once more to say goodbye when she was no longer able to respond), to this day they blame me for keeping them away. We do not speak. Every day was a battle I knew we would lose. Yet somehow I managed to continue fighting.

And then, six years ago today, her breathing changed early in the morning. I now know intimately what the "death rattle" is. My brother, her best friend, and I all gathered around her to keep vigil. At 4:00 exactly, she took a labored breath in, breathed out, her hands (now shriveled into claws) raked against the covers, and she went still. I remember I did not get to hold her hand. Both of them were held by the other two people in the room, and I didn't know where I would be able to touch her to let her know I was there.

She was 49 years old.

This memory is clear in my mind, my body, and my soul. It was the most painful and traumatic experience I had ever had, until our miscarriage last year. This memory, too, is clear, and is irrevocably connected to my mother's death. Our son's birth date was to be just the day before my mother's death date.

In my mind, I linked the two. After four years of infertility, IUIs, IVF, countless drugs and surgeries, finally it had worked. Finally, we had gotten pregnant. And finally, I would be able to be a mother to someone just like my own mother. Perhaps, I thought at the time, I'll get a piece of my mother back. Maybe I'll be able to look into my baby's eyes and see her. Maybe I will be able to have back a tiny bit of what I lost. Then, the week after we saw the heartbeat, the unthinkable happened.

And now, this week, I sit with ashes in my mouth. I cannot help thinking of everything that will not be. I cannot help grieving a double loss--that of my past, and of my future. There are very few people who seem to understand this. Either they have never lost their mother so young, or they have never lost a child. It is almost impossible for me to help others understand the tremendous burden of this grief that I carry, and how this week in particular increases its weight.

People try, understandably from their experience, to offer up hope. What they don't understand is that hope is a fragile thing. When it has shattered time and again, the shards of it begin to cut. The closer you hold it to yourself, the tighter you grip it, the deeper the wounds. At some point, hope must be laid down. Hope also must be allowed to die.

As I was when my mother lay dying, I continue to fight. For now. I do have some hope yet. But I realize that I am near the end of this struggle to find a future. At some point, I realize I may be called upon to watch it die. Just as I did my past.

It rained the day we put my mother's body into the ground. The skies here now are grey.

Rain is coming.

Curry Rant

I can't eat curry. Any curry. I realize that the recipe varies from country to country, from chef to chef, from family to family, etc. But come on, people. It's still called "curry," so there has to be something they all have in common!

I used to eat curry. Not regularly, but from time to time I would do something adventurous and try a new restaurant. I will try anything once. But after about the third or fourth time I turned a horrible shade of green and vomited for 6 hours straight within an hour of eating said curry, those old cause-effect cognitive cells kicked in. Aha! It makes me sick. I shall avoid it.

Here is where it gets weird. People actively attempt to talk me into eating curry when I say I don't want it. Even if I tell them I'm allergic (technically I think it's an intolerance, but I don't really care what it's called--it makes me violently ill), they still try to get me to try it. "It must be one of the spices," they say. "You should break it down into the most common spices and see which one of them is making you sick."

I don't know about you, but I don't often recommend to others that they deliberately eat things that will make them vomit. Call me old-fashioned, but it just seems rude. My solution is much easier, and it avoids the nasty side-effect of me spending the evening puking and feeling utterly miserable. I just don't eat curry.

And yet. And yet. People won't let this go. I don't get it. My inability to eat this largely Indian food is akin to stating that I hate kittens. I become a strange sort of anathema to those around me, a kind of anti-cool talisman that even the moderately hip seem bent on destroying. The most brazen was an old "boyfriend" (didn't last long for what will soon become obvious reasons) who took me for breakfast at a place that had "the best potatoes ever." We ordered them, and a plate full of potatoes covered in curry powder arrives on the table. He sat forward , excited as a two-year-old at clown camp as he speared a couple and held them out to me. I tried not to gag on the smell (because believe me when you have tasted something twice often enough, it is no longer pleasant to even be in the same room with it), and pulled my head back. The conversation went a little something like this:

"It has curry," I said, making sure I stated the obvious.

"Uh-huh. Here, try it!" He profered the toxic concoction once again.

"I can't eat curry; I'm allergic."

He looked at me, confused, then offered it again. "But it's really good! You've never had potatoes so good!"

"I can't. Really. I'm allergic. It will make me sick."

He put the fork down and looked at me with disgust and contempt. "You mean I brought you all the way here just for this, and you won't even try it?" At least he'd put the damned fork down by now.

"I can't. It has curry. Curry makes me very, very sick. I am allergic to it. Why don't I just get something else? What else here is good?"

He slams the fork back into the potatoes, shoveling them into his own mouth (preferable to my own, but there will be no kisses later for many reasons). "I don't know. I always come here for the potatoes, and you won't even try them."

"Look, what part of 'I can't eat them because they will make me sick,' are you not getting? Do you understand the concept of allergies?"

"All I know is that I brought you all the way down here and you won't even try the one thing I asked you to."


It went on like this for a while. And if he were the only one, I'd think he was just a freak and move on. But I have people ask me things like, "How will you be able to travel in India if you won't eat curry?" Gee, let me think: I won't go to India. I mean, look, I do love to travel, and I have been to many places in the world. And I plan to go to many more. But it's a HUGE world, people! I can just skip India. (Australia is also off the list, as it is entirely infested with spiders the size of dinner plates. But that is a story for another time.)

And so I continue in my life, living with this affliction. No, I am not able to eat at most Indian restaurants because of the smell (although if the Tandoori chicken is good enough...). I have to settle with Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, Irish, Cambodian, French, Italian, Spanish, Cajun, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and the odd diner, just to name a few. I must also live with travels to the hundreds of other countries in the world.

The saddest part is watching my friends and family deal with my affliction. It is truly they who suffer, forced away from tasty curry-laden nibblies found even at innocuous pizza places. For the most part it's not discussed after the initial discovery, as my anti-cool factor forces them into the shadows. Things could be worse, though. I could insist we eat at Dennys.

Disappointment

This week I have once again been riding a roller coaster--will it happen? When will it happen? What's happening now? Wait a minute--what the hell happened?

It was living proof that once again my body has utterly failed me. Once again I have shown that I am incapable of doing these basic things that high school dropouts seem to master without any challenges whatsoever. Sure, I can try again next month. But this is my last shot. Once these embryos are gone, my dreams of being a mother will be lost. I will need to learn how to adapt to the idea of a childless existence.

And I have to say, logically, rationally, intellectually I am doing well with that. I look at my life and I realize that it is head and shoulders above where many others are. I look at the animals and I find a place for that maternal streak, to an extent. Sure, they won't outlive me (if all goes well), and we'll never have deep conversations as to how to navigate the social intricacies of school. But they need food, and love, and cuddles.

As for my career, well, that takes more thought. I'm not sure I can go back to my former career if I am deprived of having children of my own. Who knows--after a year or more maybe my thoughts on this will change. But for now, I can't see me doing it. I do, however, have other skills to fall back on. I can do my writing, and voice acting, and audition for shows and be on stage once again. It won't be a huge salary, most likely, but then neither was early intervention!
No, I will rise from the ashes career-wise and find something that works for me.

The problem comes when I step out of my head and into the rest of my body. My guts, my bones, my flesh--they are all still reeling in pain over the losses. The mere thought of never having a child to carry in my belly, my arms, and my heart doubles me over in a physical pain. I begin to drown in feelings of remorse, regret, loss, inadequacy--labels don't seem to do the feelings justice. I simply sink beneath a flash-flood of tears, and feel there is nothing to grab onto.

My head may come out of this all right, but I fear my heart will be lost forever.